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Nov 19, 2018 at 4:20 PM

As Pike County officials stare down the staggering cost of prosecuting four death penalty cases related to the Rhoden family murders, some GOP lawmakers and the incoming state attorney general want to make sure money is available.

“It’s been known for some time that a multiple-defendant or a multiple-victim capital crime can create an undue financial burden on a local county, particularly a smaller county,” said state Auditor Dave Yost, who will take over as state attorney general in November.

In complex cases, like the Pike County murders, the cost can quickly stretch beyond $1 million, which would eat up more than 10 percent of that county’s entire budget.

>>Read more: Custody dispute played role in killing of Rhoden family, officials say

“Justice should not be a matter of affordability,” Yost said.

Yost joined Pike County’s two state lawmakers, Sen. Bob Peterson, R-Sabina, the No. 2 Senate leader, and Rep. Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, who will soon introduce a bill allowing the state to approve funds in the rare circumstances of capital cases involving multiple defendants or multiple victims.

Peterson called it a “nightmare budgeting scenario” for a rural county like Pike, which has already spent about $600,000 on the investigation of the Rhoden murders. Four people were arrested and charged with the death penalty last week for the killings.

A former 14-year commissioner in Fayette County, Peterson said, “the one thing I lived in fear of, quite frankly, was a murder case, because we didn’t budget for that. We didn’t prepare for that. To have four in a single county is kind of overwhelming.”

Attorney General and Gov.-elect Mike DeWine said last week that he understands the cost of justice is a concern for rural counties and the state needs to make sure they have the ability to carry out justice.

Last week, George "Billy" Wagner III, 47, Angela Wagner, 48, and their two sons, George Wagner IV, 27, and Edward "Jake" Wagner, 26, all of South Webster in southern Ohio, were charged with aggravated murder and related crimes in connection with the April 22, 2016, execution-style shooting deaths of eight people — seven members of the Rhoden family and a fiancée.

The victims ranged in age from 16 to 44 in what investigators have said was a meticulously planned mass murder that centered around the custody of a child.

None of the 135 felons currently on Ohio’s Death Row are from Pike County, which has an annual general fund budget of less than $10 million.

Wilkin, also a former county commissioner, said a number of southern Ohio counties are seeing falling revenue. “If you’re looking at a couple million bucks to prosecute this, it’s just devastating to a county of this size.”

These days, four death-penalty cases in a year would be more in line with a statewide total, not one county. Over the last two years, about five murderers have been sentenced to death in Ohio, according to the attorney general’s office.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, counties can incur significant costs for jailing capital-murder defendants for potentially years, plus extra security and logistics for so many capital-murder defendants.

Another likely major cost is for defense — each of the four defendants is entitled to at least two specially qualified attorneys. If the Wagners are found indigent, the Ohio Public Defenders Office will represent only one of the defendants, and the county would cover the cost for the other three, plus costs for hired experts.

For at least a decade, Pike County has had an ordinance on the books capping capital defense spending at $50,000 per defendant.

Under the proposal, it would provide a method for the state Controlling Board, a legislative spending oversight panel, to authorize unused year-end funds to be transferred to the state public defender and attorney general for capital cases with multiple defendants or multiple victims.

The process would require the public defender and attorney general to file a joint application detailing need for the funds. The trial judge would retain authority to approve spending the money.

In the Pike County murders, in addition to the four facing the death penalty, two others — Fredericka Wagner, the mother of Billy Wagner, and Rita Newcomb, the mother of Angela Wagner — have been charged with helping to cover up the murders.

The bill will not include any limit on county population size.

Peterson said he would like to see the bill pass before lawmakers finish this session in mid-December. However, he said it may be more realistic to pass it in early 2019.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

@phrontpage

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